For those of you who attended the MiiR / ODW event this past summer, and had the time of your life, you can now relive every moment through pictures, and watch the documentary Beyond the Bottle which we screened that night. It’s all right here in this post. If you weren’t able to attend, you can still look too… just don’t expect to find yourself in the pictures. If you didn’t attend and are really mad at yourself for missing it, ROAD TRIP! We are doing it again this coming Saturday, November 12, in good ol’ Boise, Idaho. Here are the event details and location.

I will be showing my Liberia prints again, as well as doing a silent auction. The goal is to raise money and awareness for the ODW Horn of Africa Relief Fund. There will be food, drinks, beats by DJ Domestic, and a screening of the documentary Beyond The Bottle, which I recommend watching if you want to find out more about the clean water crisis. Hope to see you there.

The following event photos are by my good friends Gabe and Ashley Rodriguez, who are living legends and one of Seattle’s top power couples. A very big thank you goes out to them for documenting this incredible night. Check out Ashley’s recipe and photography blog Not Without Salt, and Gabe’s photography site GabrielBoone.

If you are going to be in or around Seattle this Friday, July 29th, I hope you will make plans to come to the opening of my Liberia photography show at the EVO gallery. Doors open at 8:30pm, and MiiR Bottles will be screening the documentary film ‘Beyond the Bottle‘ for the first time at 9:30pm. The address is 122 NW 36th St, Seattle, WA 98107.

There is a suggested $5 donation at the door and all donations will go to our partner One Day’s Wagesto provide clean water for those who need it most.

It’s going to be a great party, and I hope to see many of you there. Here is the official invite / registration page. While registering is helpful for making preperations, it is worth noting, you do not have to register to attend. So if you decide at the last minute to come, no problem. See you soon!

I feel really good about this video, and I think it presents an honest look at my trip to Liberia with MiiR this past January. Several of my images were recently selected in the 2011 PDN Faces contest, and I thought this would be a good excuse to put together a video that shows a little more of what the experience was like and how the images came together. I cannot say enough about my editor for this video, Andy Maier. He put so much thought and hard work into this, and his efforts made all the difference. I feel blessed to be able to work with wonderfully creative people, such as Andy and everyone else I have been creating with this past year.

The man at the beginning of the video is Pastor Kondoh, and he will be coming to Seattle in just a couple of weeks for a project MiiR CEO Bryan Pape and I are working on. I can’t wait to see him again. This will be a trip of many firsts for him, including his first time out of Africa, and his first time on an airplane. Without sounding like a tease, I do have a little bit of freedom to talk more about the project I referred to above. You can hear about it in greater detail on the podcast interview I did with Faded & Blurred recently. I start talking about it around minute 40.

The 2011 PDN Faces issue is out, and Plants Vs. Zombies is a winner in the Celebrity/Editorial Portraits category. MyLiberia series also won, under the Environmental Portraiture category. Last year, my portrait of Annie Leibovitz was the feature image in PDN Faces. It’s a thrill to have my work included in the contest again. Last July through April of this year felt like I was going at 200 mph non stop, and it’s nice to be able to slow down a little bit in the summer and reflect back on the work I have done this past year. It is even more satisfying to have that work recognized by the various contests I have won recently. Now it’s time to get busy again. Lots to do and look forward to. The new Keatley office project, the 2011 Christmas photo, some new video projects, and hopefully more fun work as well. I just finished a short video about my experience in Liberia this past January, and I will post it shortly (tonight). I think you will like it.

Side note: Co-founder of PopCap Games, John Vechey (pictured above) trumped my award just a little when PopCap was acquired by Electronic Arts for $1.3 billion, just days after the PDN award became public. Congrats John. Dolla dolla bills, y’all. I like to think the awards for this picture is what pushed EA to pull the trigger. Not that I am surprised, because just days after I photographed TechCrunch founder and CEO Michael Arrington in his home, TechCrunch was purchased by AOL for $30 million. You seeing a pattern here? I can’t legally promise companies will throw millions of dollars at you after I take your picture, but… Hey, that could make a great promo.

The list of this years Faces winners is on the official contest website. I haven’t had a chance to see the issue in person yet, but I am looking forward to sitting down with it.

Here is my new video interview on Adorama TV, hosted by Mark Wallace. I was really impressed with Mark’s questions, and I think the video turned out great. Some of the questions include the gear I use, what it was like photographing Annie Leibovitz, how I approach photographing celebrities who are aligned with hot issues, and much more. I am going to keep this pretty short because of the video, and there isn’t really anything I need to add. Thanks for taking a look, I hope you enjoy it.

My website updates are finished, and I am pleased to announce I have a new Liberia gallery in the Selected Work section of the website. If you subscribe to this blog in a reader you may have see some strange posts come through during the update, but that has been fixed and everything should be back to normal now. The current selection of images is basically round one as I will be adding more images in a few weeks. I feel really good about this first edit. Take a look and let me know what you think. I hope you like them.

Wow. That pretty much sums up how I am feeling right now. Late last night I posted Zachariah’s Portrait along with some information on sponsoring a child (Zachariah specifically) with the hope that maybe one person would feel inclined to support the work being done to educate and love children in Liberia. Those kids, and the Liberian people, have really been on my heart lately, and I just felt it was an opportunity I needed to share. Well, not only was Zachariah sponsored as of early this morning, but all four of the children needing sponsorship have now been supported. I heard from Daryl Finley, the founder of Well Done Organization tonight, and he has received numerous emails from you asking if you can still help. I didn’t expect such an outpouring of love and support, and I just want to say thank you. You really touched my heart today.

Although there are no children currently listed, there are still several children who need sponsors, and it sounds like the program will be expanding shortly. Please make sure to check the website from time to time, or if you want to get on the list you can also use the WDO contact page.

Thank you to everyone who stepped up today to help. Some of you donated your money, some of you helped spread the word on Facebook, and many of you ReTweeted my blog post link. Thank you to everyone. It is so great to be part of this community and to see what we can accomplish when we work together.

While in Liberia last month, I met a wonderful man named Prince Kondoh. He goes by Pastor Kondoh, and he has dedicated his life to serving those who can not help themselves, and teaching the children in his community. During the recent civil war in Liberia, he was basically a prisoner in his own home for 14 years. Not able to go outside without risking his life. Now that peace has returned to Liberia, he works harder than anyone I have ever met with the hope he might be able to make up for lost time. No minute is wasted, and no challenge is too great. He has started multiple schools in Buchanan, one of which is called Chariot Daycare and Elementary School. We were asked to visit the school one morning before we headed out to one of the villages where the wells were being built. Because of the economic situation, there are many children who’s families are not able to pay for school, and I was asked if I would take a few pictures of the students needing sponsorship.

I was thinking I would take a few snapshots and it would be a quick thing. But then I realized I didn’t pack all of these lights half way around the world to take snapshots, even if this wasn’t in the plan. So all of the gear was taken out of the truck and we set up the lights. As I was finessing the lights into place, something caused me to slow down and look around. I wasn’t thrilled with how the portrait was turning out, and then I had a realization. The natural light was near perfect. I struggled with this idea for a few minutes, trying to convince myself it wasn’t possible. Natural light never does exactly what I am looking for, especially in the middle of the day. The picture won’t turn out. But finally after a few tests, I decided to shoot this one with just my Hasselblad and nothing else. It was very freeing to say the least. For some reason, I had it in my head that it wasn’t possible to shoot a picture in my style with only natural light. Natural light never seems to have the pop to it I am looking for, or if it does, the light isn’t at the right angle etc. Most of the time natural light isn’t what I am looking for, but this instance proved to be an exception. It wasn’t until we were back at our house that night, and I loaded the images on my laptop, that I was hit in the face with the detail and clarity of this portrait and the others I shot that day. It was a great lesson for me to be aware of what is going on and to be open to improvising or even deviating from a plan.

But enough about lighting for now. If you can’t tell already, this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. His name is Zachariah and he is a student at Chariot. I could stare at this image for hours and continue to find new things I like about it. Zachariah is one of the students in need of sponsorship, and I figured the very least I could do was provide a link to sponsor him or any of the other children who need support. The cost is $15 a month and that covers clothing and food, as well as education. If you decide you would like to sponsor Zachariah, please write me after you have done so, and I will send you a free print.

The Child Sponsorship Program is run by the Well Done Organization which is the organization building the wells in Liberia that my client MiiR Bottles partnered with. I can personally vouch for the people working for WDO, as well as the organization itself. Some really great things are happening in Liberia with the support of WDO.

It feels good to start posting images from this trip, and as promised there will be more in the days and weeks to come. My developer just showed me round one of the revisions to my website tonight, and once it is finished I will have a new portfolio section with pictures from Liberia.

Nichelle and I just got back from dinner with the team from MiiR Bottles and Well Done Organization I recently traveled to Liberia with. It was fun to be with everyone again and re-live some of the stories from our trip. Especially for Nichelle to hear stories from other people’s perspectives. In the few weeks since I have been back in the States, I have constantly been thinking and dreaming about all I learned in Africa. There are some ideas and projects I am working on in response to my experience, and I will be sharing more about all of this over the course of the next several months, or maybe longer. Before I get to any of that, though, I need to do yet another website update to accommodate the Liberia project, as well as another personal project I am working on. A book is also in the works and is projected to be out around May. Fingers crossed.